The room erupted in shouts.
“Get down!” Bert yelled at the boy. “Drop the knife or I’ll shoot!”
The girl screamed.
A gunshot ripped the air.
Boots thudded the floor.
Bert’s face appeared overhead, hovering among the seeds. “Rik? You okay? Nod if you can hear me.”
Riki nodded. He blinked hard. The pink cleared, and he realized he was lying on his back staring up at the pockmarked ceiling.
“The ambulance is on the way,” someone said.
“I … I don’t need … an ambulance,” said Riki. He tried to lift himself but couldn’t gain balance; the room was still rolling like a melon down a hill.
“It’ll be here in five,” said the voice.
“I said”—Riki reached up and grabbed Bert by the sleeve—“I’m fine.”
Bert patted his hand, and Riki felt a tremor in it. “I know you are, Rik, but he ain’t.”
The girl cried. “Lo siento. Tuvimos que hacerlo para nuestra familia. Mi hermano. Por favor. Señor, señor, señor,” she called and reached feebly out to Riki.
A CBP agent crooked her arm behind her back, forced her to a stand and escorted her away.
“Kid had 300 grams of cocaine in his pants.” Bert cleared his throat. “Guess he figured he was screwed either way. Might as well …” He wiped the sweat trickling down his neck. “I got him in the leg—just to stop him. Paramedics are on the way.”
Riki’s hand to his face returned bloody. Bert helped him sit upright.
“The kid kicked your face.” Bert’s Adam’s apple wobbled.
Riki took a sharp breath. “Hurts like hell.” A fiery throbbing commenced between his eye sockets and the back of his skull.
Agents and police officers ushered people out. “Agent Mosley,” called Chief Garza. “Looks like the boy and his sister are a couple of drug mules. Smuggler says he didn’t know. When he found out, he gave her the eye.”
“They caught him?” asked Riki.
“Yup,” said Garza. “Name’s Carl Bauer. Funny thing is, he’s not even Hispanic. He’s from Nebraska. Prior record. Figured he’d come down to Mexico and make a killing bringing people over. One of the immigrants says everybody in here paid $4,000 a pop.”
“Same guy on the Rio?” asked Bert.
“Naw,” said Garza. “That was a local. He checked out. Legal.”
“Shit.” Bert shook his head. “Guy looked as Mexican as they come. Why’d he run?”
“ ’Cause we were chasing him,” said Riki.
“Carl was hiding in the trailer next door. Came in and told the lady and her kid he’d give them ten thousand if they kept quiet. Scared the kid so bad he pissed his pants. Mom dialed 911 when he wasn’t looking,” explained Garza.
“Dumb fellow,” said Bert. “He didn’t know it was the same lady who tipped us off in the first place.”
Riki recalled the woman’s scowling face from weeks prior, her little boy on the tricycle: “Bye! Bye-Bye!” She had to be of Mexican descent too. Maybe she thought the same way he did: that rules were there for a reason, even if the reasons didn’t exactly add up. Better to be on the side of authority than against it.
Still, as the paramedics arrived and flashed penlights over his eyes, Riki couldn’t help but think there had to be a better way than this—useless suffering, unwarranted loss. There had to be a way for him to be loyal to his country and his personal convictions.
“You got a nasty cut and a concussion.” The paramedic had a thick Spanish accent made even more distinct by the wad of bubblegum he chewed. “You’re lucky. They say that guy almost broke your neck. Lights out.” He handed Riki two Tylenol. “Rest, and don’t bang your head for a week. You got someone to take care of you at home?”
Riki didn’t answer. Instead, he swallowed the pills dry. They scoured the back of his throat as they went down.
He’d accused Reba of being the one with the problem, but maybe deep down, it was him. How could he demand decisions from others when he hadn’t made them? Before he could be true to her, he had to be true to himself.
Chapter Twenty-three
SCHMIDT BÄCKEREI
56 LUDWIGSTRASSE
GARMISCH, GERMANY
JANUARY 24, 1945
“This is a surprise.” Frau Rattelmüller gave a hacking cough into the sleeve of her coat.
A chilly wind swept round the kitchen.
“I saw the chimney smoke.” She banged her cane against timber door frame. “Your oven was lit early, so I thought I’d get my brötchen.”
Elsie swallowed hard and stepped in front of Tobias, shielding him with her skirt. “Six o’clock. You know we don’t open until then. With my parents away, I haven’t the time for special purchases. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait like the rest.”
Frau Rattelmüller craned her neck around Elsie. “Seems you have a helper.” She pointed with the shepherd’s hook of her staff. “A little elf.”
Elsie stiffened. “I must ask you to go.” She moved toward the door, aching to lock the chain, usher Tobias up to his hiding space, and pretend it was all a bad dream. The consequence of this moment was more than she could bear. Even Josef wouldn’t be able to save her now.
Tobias cowered by the oven, its kindle burning and hissing within.
“Is he a Jew?” Frau Rattelmüller asked, unyielding.
Elsie’s knees buckled. She couldn’t throw the old woman out now or she’d go straight to the Gestapo. “A Jew?” She forced an awkward laugh. “Nein, this is—”
“Because he seems to fit the description of the Jew child the Gestapo searched for on Christmas Eve.” She stepped inside the kitchen and closed the door behind her. “They came to my house, too, and scared my old Matilda into a hairball fit.”
Frau took a seat on the nearby stool and leaned her wrinkled chin on the wooden cane handle, inspecting them.
“You are mistaken,” said Elsie. Her cheeks were as hot as the oven’s coals. A pitchy note rang shrill in her ears. She tried to sip in air.
“Come here, boy,” said Frau Rattelmüller.
Elsie held him by the hand. “This is my nephew Julius. Hazel’s son.”
Frau Rattelmüller narrowed her eyes on Tobias. “Tell me then, when did they start marking the German boys like the Jews in the camps?”
Tobias’s sleeves were folded up to the bend of his elbows. A centipede of inked numbers scrawled down his left arm. He covered them.
Frau Rattelmüller huffed and thudded her staff against the tiled floor. “Don’t lie to me, child. I know your family too well. It isn’t in your blood—the art of deception.” She grinned with yellowed teeth that reminded Elsie of a children’s recording her papa bought them long ago: Peter and the Wolf. The wolf’s French horns and Peter’s pitched violins played in her mind.
Though the sun climbed in the sky, the room grew darker and blurred at the edges. Elsie steadied herself, dug her fingernails into her palms. She had to think clearly, to find an explanation, but all she could hear was the squeals and moans of the logs in the oven.
“You’ve been hiding this child for what—a month now? I’m impressed. Are your parents involved?”
There was no way out, but Elsie would not drag her family into her mess. “No,” she said.